Submission, thoughts about BDSM

I am a sub. It’s not something that is particularly hidden but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my sexual identity and particularly how my sexual identity and my submissive identity play into both each other and also who I am.
I’m not (and nor am ever likely to be) involved within the BDSM community, I’m a fringe girl, I do have a need for vanilla style relationships (using vanilla in it’s strictest BDSM usage there). I like to play but I’m fairly sure put me in a room with a whol lot of lifestyle BDSMers and they’d assume I was vanilla. Equally though I’m reasonably sure that people who weren’t into even the fringes of BDSM wouldn’t assume I was a sub.

I am and have been reasonably anti-authoritarian throughout my life. To a noticeable degree. I’ve been questinoing lately where parts of my sexual identity come from, I keep bumping into people who are incredibly Freudian (and given my first boyfriend’s response to my asking to be spanked was ‘Tell me, did your father spank you?’ this occaisionally makes me twitch) and also who are convinced that BDSM means some sort of child abuse in your past. Then of course, I go online and find people who talk about BDSM as if it were a sexuality like bi, homo or hetero. I find it interesting how many of my gay friends who are wondering how much sexuality is down to nurture over nature at the moment.

I was looking at that anti-authoritarian part of myself though and thinking a lot, certain of my BDSM friends are convinced I’m a brat. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over my subby side and am largely being more and more convinced that it is very much down to personal chemistry and I can be a brat – if the dom/me/s I’m with are provoking enough of the sub in me that I’ll go with it but not enough that I just plunge. I’ve always known that I wasn’t a slave and lately how much I enjoy pain has been entirely superceded by how much I love being controlled, it really has brought home to me how much the whips and the chains really, really are the trappings and fun as they are (and oh they are) they aren’t what really brings me up to the edge.
It’s that anti-authoritarian streak that I’ve always had that makes me wonder if there isn’t something to the ‘you’re born with it’ argument. I realise having just said how much I like being controlled that this may sound a little perverse. But it is very much subs choice. That is to say, subs choice to act on the chemistry. When you’re a kid I fully believe that there is a sexual make-up there within you and like anything else you’re working out how to act on it. Obviously, brought up by responsible adults you work out you aren’t supposed to act on it, eventually if you aren’t brought up by repressive Christians you work out that this doesn’t mean not ever.

I’m reasonably sure I’ve been bisexual my whole life, I just rationalised my liking pretty women into heterosexual artiness until I got jumped by one, have I been submissive my whole life? Anyone who knew me as a kid if asked that question would snort and vigourously say no. But me, I’m wondering, there is a huge difference between being controlled and choosing for someone to control you. I don’t want to be under someone’s thumb when I haven’t put myself there and when I have chosen that then I’m not sure I have the words to describe how good that that feels. How relaxing and just, good. I don’t enjoy being a brat with someone that I’ve made that choice with though as part of a game it can be fun. I do note that some of my more BDSM friends have been telling me how convinced they are that I’m a lifestyle sub. I still don’t think I am, but there is a difference between playing BDSM style games in an otherwise vanilla situation and playing those games with a dom. It’s not something I could do 24/7 and it’s not soemthing I can ever picturing myself needing 24/7, but it is something that sometimes I do, I guess need. As with any relationship those needs can’t be filled by just anyone (though I’m still of the poly persuasion that they can be filled by several people). I think my reaction to that sexual part of myself as a child, given that they couldn’t be acted upon, was to be a bit of a brat. I couldn’t deny the sexual thrill because I couldn’t identify it as a sexual thrill. Hence when faced with doms that there isn’t chemistry with – bratty behaviour ensues, though since it doesn’t happen with everyone presumably it means that they’re doing more than just pushing a hot button.

I think I was born a sub, I don’t think I became one – though who can answer the nature/nurture debate? Submission is more than a deeply needed part of myself though, it’s not only a part of who I am, it’s a part of discovering who I am. I’ve always found sex and sex with multiple partners to be a way of discovering the different parts of myself but the discovery inherant in submission is definately providing some deeper exploration into parts of me I’ve usually been good at ignoring.
I don’t know if you’re supposed to examine every single part of yourself under a microscope – I don’t think that it’s healthy but the relationship that ended last year made me realise that there are some issues I really do skate over, my personal therapy (ignoring fucking doctors) – sex, submission and a lot of thinking and writing almost has me feeling that relaxation of submission whilst I’m walking around.

Huh – maybe I could do 24/7 (NO WAY).